Match Report Everton’s survival hopes took a sizeable dent as they were played off Goodison Park by their former boss Marco Silva’s Fulham despite a briefly successful reshuffle by Sean Dyche that brought the Blues back into the game at 1-1. Shorn of the suspended Abdoulaye Doucouré and the injured Amadou Onana and with Dominic Calvert-Lewin once again left out of the match-day squad, Everton had looked aimless and disjointed in the early going and fell behind midway through the first half when Harrison Reed slotted home. A tactical switch that moved Alex Iwobi into a central role and moved Dwight McNeil to the right flank paid dividends, though, with McNeil scoring what was, at the time, a precious equaliser. But the home side would be left to rue some missed, gilt-edged chances at the end of the first period as the visitors took control after half-time to run out comfortable winners. Onana’s absence with a groin injury paved the way for James Garner to make his first Premier League start as he lined up in midfield alongside Idrissa Gueye and behind a front pairing of Demarai Gray and Neal Maupay, the latter preferred to Ellis Simms. Ben Godfrey switched sides to play at right-back in place of Seamus Coleman who was ruled out with a hamstring strain as Vitalii Mykolenko returned to the starting XI at left-back. The Toffees had the first shot on target in the fifth minute when Gray profited from Garner’s intercepting tackle and fired a low shot that Bernd Leno safely gathered at his near post. However, it was Fulham who took the upper hand once they had got the measure of an Everton side that seemed to lack ideas and belief going forward and they should have gone ahead with 18 minutes gone when James Tarkowski gifted Harry Wilson the ball around 15 yards from goal but he shot tamely at Jordan Pickford. A corner that picked out Andreas Pereira in oceans of space on the edge of the box saw the Belgian bounce a half-volley wide but just a minute later it was 1-0 as Fulham pounced on another Everton giveaway in midfield and sprang foward. Wilson’s shot came back off the post, Dan James did enough to knock the rebound into the path of the untracked Reed and he placed the ball wide of Pickford and inside the post. Everton probably should have levelled 10 minutes later when Maupay was fouled by Tosin Adarabioyo, James Tarkowski won the initial header from the resulting free-kick but then blazed the loose ball over the bar after Leno had parried Maupay’s header from point-blank range. The leveller did come 10 minutes before the break, however, when Idrissa Gueye’s tenacity won the ball in midfield, Garner carried it forward and found McNeil who drove towards the penalty area before drilling a crisp shot into the bottom corner from 20 yards out. A neat one-two between Maupay and McNeil in the 40th minute opened up an great chance for the Frenchman but Leno got a crucial arm to his close-range shot to keep the ball out and McNeil appeared to have teed up Gray in the 44th minute but the forward side-footed past the far post with the goal gaping in front of him. The Blues’ fortune deserted them four minutes after the interval when McNeil’s cross came back off the woodwork rather than sneaking past Leno and almost immediately Fulham restored a lead they never looked like relinquishing. Tarkowski lunged in needlessly on one side of the pitch but missed his man, Godfrey was was caught out by a deep cross to the back post and Willian knocked it back to Wilson who had the simple task of rapping the ball past Pickford to make it 2-1. Another short corner routine that once again found Pereira free outside the box required action from Pickford to push a fierce shot over the bar before shots from William and Paulinha were blocked and Pereira again smashed the ball over following Mykolenko’s poor attempt to clear his lines. Godfrey was forced off with a suspected concussion, with Nathan Patterson coming on in his place but Everton looked lost at this point and they fell further into arrears with 22 minutes left. A simple ball over the top wasn’t dealt with by Tarkowski, Dan James’s touch inside took a fortunate ricochet off Michael Keane and the Welshman found himself with just the stranded Pickford to beat, which he did with aplomb to deliver the killer blow to an utterly despondent Everton side. Dyche’s men stirred briefly after Simms had belatedly come on for Maupay, as Iwobi tested Leno with a shot that had to be palmed behind and Garner first fired at the German keeper from distance and then drove another effort that narrowly missed the left-hand post but the fight had largely left both Everton and the Goodison faithful. Billed as, perhaps, Everton’s most winnable game between now and the final day against Bournemouth, this has the potential to be a crushing home defeat if it is not followed up with a heroic display at improving Crystal Palace next weekend. The Eagles have won three on the bounce to arrest their slide down the table but Dyche now needs to quickly find some answers to his own team’s crumbling morale and lack of goalscoring threat lest the remaining teams around them start to put the results together that could send Everton down this season. Lyndon Lloyd top Matchday Updates Everton simply failed to turn up for a hugely significant game in the dogfight at the bottom of the Premier League as they were given a right old runaround by Marco Silva's Fulham side. Dominic Calvert-Lewin fails yet again to make his long-awaited and much-anticipated return to the squad. Ellis Simms is dropped to make way for Neal Maupay in a re-jigged attempt to cope with the continuing absence of Abdulaye Doucouré, who serves the second of his three-game suspension for slapping Harry Kane. Seamus Coleman is ruled out with a hamstring problem and Amadou Onana is also absent so Vitaliy Mykolenko and James Garner start. Youngster Ishe Samuels-Smith is named among the subs for the first time, along with Stanley Mills. Fulham kicked off and controlled much of play until Pickford grasped a lofted cross. Everton had a chance to build until Iwobi gave up the ball in an advanced position. Everton worked their way forward until Gray could make the first shot probably going wide of Leno. A decent move saw Mykolenko deliver a fast low forward diagonal ball that needed something clever from Gray to convert. Needless to say… Mykolenko fouled and the free-kick was sent well long. More threatening play from Fulham needed to be defended, Willian shooting tamely at Pickford. Fulham leading on points after the early exchanges with Everton not really pressing. Iwobi did get the ball back, only to hoof it forward to no-one. The lack of ideas going forward was stark. Even when McNeil got a decent chance his cross was blocked but then Reed fouled him for a decent free-kick chance wide left. It was drilled in a bit too low and Wilson gave up the corner, taken by Garner, into a good area, but defended away. Garner put in a decent cross but it too was headed clear. Adreadferror in defence by Tarkowski inadvertently set up Wilson whose shot was saved by Pickford. Fulham continued to apply pressure, winning a corner that Andreas, all alone, punted wide. The warnings had been there and Wilson hit the post with a tremendous shot and, from the rebound, Reed scored. Reed generously gave away a free-kick but James was the beneficiary with his quick break forward. Fulham was exerting more control and confidence, with Everton lacking any response. Gueye caught ____ on the ankle for his customary early yellow card. From the free-kick, Palhiniha headed over. At the other end, Everton just weren't sharp or bright enough to create anything. Maupay was elbowed in the back of the neck for another free-kick that Mcneil scooped in and how did Maupay fail to score, heading close range straight at Leno. With the inviting rebound, Tarkowski went crazy and produce a somewhat inappropriate rugby drop goal. From close possession, the ball was played backwards to Pickford bt the forward ball eventually fell to Graner who moved forward and fed McNeil. He controlled the ball and the space and executed a superb shot wide of Leno and inside the post to put Everton level. At last, a bit of forward play with initiative and desire produced the desired result. Everton finally understood they needed to play competitively and started to press, finally trying to make a game of it, but it was Fulham who responded to the ramped -up atmosphere. With Everton playing a lot better, a great move set up Maupay and yet again, he messed up the shot, which hit Leno at close range when he really, really, really should have scored. The Blues drove forward again and won a corner but it was played back deep and the cross could not be recovered by Maupay. The Blues tried advancing down the right but it was a little disjointed. McNeil tried to skip forward again but Reed's tackle was very good. A great cross in from McNeil was clipped not quite hard enough and the ball bounced harmlessly past the far post. In the 2 minutes of added lime, Everton again pressed and look to play forward, Gray slicing his distant shot well over. Everton had rescued an initially poor start to the half, but needed to raise their game even further in the second half. Everton restarted brightly, getting the ball forward well, Mykolenko's shot deflecting for a corner but a foul was called on Leno. Willian had a potshot at the other end, well off target. Godfrey was blatantly shoved off the ball but nothing given. McNeil's deflected cross smacked the outside of the post with Leno covering it. Play was scrappy but at least the layers in Blue were putting in a lot of effort to chase and win the ball. Iwobi was doing better with his passing but Maupay tried to do too much and was dispossessed. But a miserable spell of play saw Fulham take the lead, Reed saving a deep cross played back for Wilson to finish with ease. Everton tried to respond again but Godfrey's cross was just terrible. Fulham won a corner off Mykolenko, taken short and driven goalward by Anreass, fisted up and behind. Tosin headed the resulting corner over. Godfrey needed treatment, and indeed Patterson replaced Godfrey in a concussion substitution. Fulham's play was just too quick for the Everton players who ended up committing the foul that gave Fulham another chance to build, Pickford almost carrying the ball outside his penalty area. Fulham continued to stifle Everton's attempts to break and they almost set up the third as multiple players lined up for what looked like target practise at the Park End. Andreas skied a gift of a shot claiming a corner that was laboriously cleared. But the Blues just could not get forward. Another fearsome Fulham break saw Robinson on a 60-yard run, winning another corner, again half-cleared only to come right back. Pickford finally grabbed the ball but could not get the team to advance. Wilson did well to get the ball off Gray without fouling him. From a quick Fulham free-kick, a lofted ball forward over the Everton defence was not read well by Mykolenko but was controlled well by James and driven past Pickford, and it felt like an ominous nail in the coffin for the hapless Blues. Sean Dyche's answer was to replace Gana with Davies. Gray's desperate lunge only earned him a yellow card and Fulham another chance to swing in a dangerous ball that went over everyone. Everton did finally get forward, Maupay playing in Iwobi whose shot was touched past the post by Leno. Simms came on for MaupayFrom the second phase. Keane could only head the ball straight to Leno. McNeil's shot was blocked and Garner tired one from too far out to beat Leno. And Fulham returned to the attack, Willian forcing a corner off Patterson. Another dreadful clearance was played out straight to James who shot wide. Mykolenko caught Wilson and got a yellow for it; never a red. Davies was caught and almost gave away a fourth, the shot saved by Pickford. The ease with which Fulham won the ball back and surged forward, Willian shooting past Pickford and right along the goalline behind him was frightening. Garner responded with a decent shot of his own that flew past the post. Davies was easily robbed again. The lack of forward intent was telling as Everton could not keep the ball, kept giving it away, and Fulham kept surging forward with shocking pace and intensity that put the Blues to shame. What an utterly dismal display from the hapless Blues. Everton: Pickford, Godfrey (58' Patterson), Keane, Tarkowski, Mykolenko [Y:80'], Gana [Y:26'] (69' Davies), Garner, Iwobi, McNeil, Gray [Y:70'], Maupay (74' Simms). Subs not Used: Begovic, Holgate, Mina, Coady, Mills, Samuels-Smith. Fulham: Leno [Y:74'], Tete, Tosin [Y:], Ream, Robinson, Palhinha, Reed (85' Lukic), Andreas (79' Cairney), Wilson, James (90' Alves Morias), Willian (79' De Cordova-Reid). Subs not Used: Rodak, Cedric, Duffy, Diop, Solomon. Michael Kenrick top Match Preview As he watched from the stands at Goodison Park, it’s unlikely that Marco Silva will have taken much joy from Everton’s comprehensive defeat to his Fulham team on what was a sobering, even frightening afternoon for the fans he was charged with pleasing what feels like an awfully long time ago now. He will, no doubt, have taken enormous satisfaction, though, at a performance and result that ended a five-match winless run in the Premier League, all the while being reminded of how fragile things can seem in this famous old stadium; how an air of resignation at the outcome of a given game can almost seep from the Old Lady’s girders; at how a rot can set in that only dramatic change or a seismic eruption of passion and desire from the supporters can overcome. Change has been frequent at Everton, of course, and Silva was once a victim of a need for change that was, in context of the Toffees’ ambitions in 2019, justified but the most significant change this season has already occurred with the replacement of Frank Lampard with Sean Dyche. It came far too late and it was critically undermined by the failure in January to add any attacking reinforcements to a team that lost its Talisman last June and has to largely fare without its injured top scorer for the better part of 18 months. Dyche hasn’t — couldn’t, in reality — complained about his lot but he has spent the past 2½ months trying various combinations of attacking line-ups, searching for a solution to a chronic lack of goals. The search goes on and the broad consenus is that Dyche got it wrong today, even if he was let down by the two forwards tasked with leading the line today against Fulham as both missed gilt-edged and vital chances in the short period of the match where Everton were on top. Having done the hard part by executing a neat one-two with Dwight McNeil, Neal Maupay, with just one goal to his name in his last 33 games should have put the Blues ahead five minutes before the break, although credit to goalkeeper Bernd Leno who covered his angles well and got a vital arm to the Frenchman’s shot; likewise, Demarai Gray, the team’s top scorer in all competitions who could have added to his tally with a surer contact on McNeil’s cross four minutes later. That neither player was able to find the killer instinct in front of goal would prove hugely costly in the second half thanks to another a defensive posture that was mystifyingly open and porous for a Dyche team. What the appointment of the former Burnley boss supposedly promised was solidity at the back and a general difficulty to beat about the side but, just as at Old Trafford last week, the Blues’ back line was breached far too easily and was embarrassingly susceptible to the ball over the top. The result was a crushing 3-1 defeat that has the potential to be utterly devastating if Dyche isn’t able to spark an immediate reaction from his charges against a revitalised Crystal Palace and a talented but unpredictable Newcastle over the next fortnight. This one, against a Cottagers outfit that seemed to be falling away from European contention with the loss to a long ban of Aleksandr Mitrovic, was supposed to be the most winnable of Everton’s remaining eight games. Shorn of the suspended Abdoulaye Doucouré and the injured Amadou Onana and with Dominic Calvert-Lewin once again left out of the match-day squad, Everton had looked aimless and disjointed in the early going, despite having the first shot on target in the fifth minute when Gray profited from full debutant James Garner’s intercepting tackle and fired a low shot that Leno safely gathered at his near post. Everton would quickly become overrun in midfield and it quickly became apparent that a side that has always struggled to play its way through teams, had little idea how to get the ball into forward areas if it wasn’t in quick transition or the counter-attack when the pitch opened up in front of them. Otherwise, the strategy appeared to revolve around Jordan Pickford lofting balls forward in the general direction of two small forwards and hoping that one of the midfielders could pick up the loose ball. If the goalkeeper had been hoping for one of Maupay or Gray to peel off a marker or shape to make a telling run in behind, he would be increasingly frustrated… visibly and audibly so, to the point where his manager had to tell him at one point to calm down. Fulham took the upper hand once they had got the measure of hosts who quickly appeared to lack ideas and belief going forward and they should have gone ahead with 18 minutes gone when James Tarkowski gifted Harry Wilson the ball around 15 yards from goal but he shot tamely at Pickford. A corner that picked out Andreas Pereira in oceans of space on the edge of the box saw the Belgian bounce a half-volley wide but just a minute later it was 1-0 as Fulham pounced on another Everton giveaway in midfield and sprang forward. Wilson’s shot came back off the post, Dan James did enough to knock the rebound into the path of the untracked Harrison Reed and he placed the ball wide of Pickford and inside the post. The 4-4-2 formation with pint-sized forwards hadn’t worked but a tactical switch from Dyche that moved Alex Iwobi into a central role, moved McNeil to the right flank and dropped Gray off to left would pay dividends before half-time, though. Everton probably should have levelled 10 minutes later when Maupay was fouled by Tosin Adarabioyo, Tarkowski won the initial header from the resulting free-kick but then blazed the loose ball over the bar after Leno had parried Maupay’s header from point-blank range. The leveller did come 10 minutes before the break, however, and it came from one signing from last summer who is at least proving his worth under Dyche. When Idrissa Gueye’s tenacity won the ball in midfield, Garner carried it forward and found McNeil who drove towards the penalty area before drilling a crisp shot into the bottom corner from 20 yards out. Maupay’s missed chance was another great chance that went begging but McNeil teed up Gray perfectly in the 44th minute, only for the forward to side-footed past the far post with the goal gaping in front of him. The Blues’ fortune deserted them four minutes after the interval when McNeil’s cross came back off the woodwork rather than sneaking past Leno and, capitalising on uncertainty among the centre-backs, Tarkowski and Keane, and the deployment of the unsuited Ben Godfrey at right-back in place of the injured Seamus Coleman, Fulham almost immediately restored a lead they never looked like relinquishing. Tarkowski lunged in needlessly on one side of the pitch but missed his man, Godfrey was was caught out by a deep cross to the back post and Willian knocked it back to Wilson who had the simple task of rapping the ball past Pickford to make it 2-1. Another short corner routine that once again found Pereira free outside the box required action from Pickford to push a fierce shot over the bar before shots from William and Paulinha were blocked and Pereira again smashed the ball over following Mykolenko’s poor attempt to clear his lines. Godfrey was forced off with a suspected concussion, with Nathan Patterson coming on in his place but Everton looked lost at this point and they fell further into arrears with 22 minutes left. A simple ball over the top wasn’t dealt with by Tarkowski, Dan James’s touch inside took a fortunate ricochet off Michael Keane and the Welshman found himself with just the stranded Pickford to beat, which he did with aplomb to deliver the killer blow to an utterly despondent Everton side. Dyche’s men stirred briefly after Ellis Simms had belatedly come on for Maupay, as Iwobi tested Leno with a shot that had to be palmed behind and Garner first fired at the German keeper from distance and then drove another effort that narrowly missed the left-hand post but the fight had largely left both Everton and the Goodison faithful. In terms of its timing in the season and the gut-punch it represented, this defeat is being compared to the Toffees’ ugly defeat to Dyche’s Burnley a little over a year ago. As a home game Everton needed to and were expected to win, it brings to mind the 3-2 loss against Brentford but it remains to be seen whether the fans have the energy of spirit to drag this team over the line the way they did last season. This is going to have to come from Dyche and the players. It’s going to need a reset and refocus on the defensive side of the game. It’s going to need them to go to places like Selhurst Park, the King Power Stadium and Molineux and scratch out at least one victory. And it will likely need a healthy dose of fortune on the injury front where the absences of Onana and Coleman were keenly felt and the return of Calvert-Lewin up front is really quite urgent now in order to provide a proper focal point up front. While there are games to be played — six of them, if you’re ruling out getting anything against Manchester City — points to be won and three other teams apart from doomed Southampton struggling for points along with us, there is still opportunity and there is still hope. The manner of this defeat will sting but for this club’s top flight survival — and, perhaps, for the continuation of Everton’s very existence — we fans have to keep fighting, keep believing, keep supporting; to put this one behind us and go again. We have no other option. Lyndon Lloyd top * Unfortunately, we cannot control other sites' content policies and therefore cannot guarantee that links to external reports will remain active.